What Might Have Been
by mari4212
Summary: What might have happened had the Doctor done things a bit differently in The Girl in the Fireplace. Temporarily on hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This story contains spoilers for _Girl in the Fireplace, _if you haven't read spoilers for or seen the current season, beware what lies before you. _Doctor Who_ is owned by the BBC and various other people who do not include me in their number, anything you recognize really does belong to them.

* * *

Rose

She'd waited there for five and a half hours. Waited there and agonized for him, praying that he'd save Reinette. She'd seen his face, seen his eyes light up as he'd talked about her, and she'd seen the devastation on his face when he thought that he wouldn't be able to save her. Much as it might hurt, much as some jealous part of her wanted to keep the Doctor with her and damn what happened to French-lady, she had to help him save her. She'd been the one to suggest that stupid horse anyway, while the Doctor and Mickey were just standing around in horror.

She'd helped him go back. Inside her mind, she kept hearing his voice, the old him that is, so happy, "_Everybody lives! Just this once, everybody lives!"_ Part of that had found its way into her soul, and she couldn't not help.

Oh, but it had hurt so much to send him back there, knowing there was no guarantee that he'd find his way back to them in the fifty-first century. And it had hurt even more when she'd seen the look in his eyes, and realized that he loved Madame Pompadour enough to be willing to risk it.

So she'd waited. And then, as the minutes had ticked by, and she'd just started to lose hope, she'd heard his steps on the ship's decking. Mickey didn't walk like that, not with that light, fast, arrogant stride. It had to be him. And she'd turned and run to hug him, so glad to see him alive and here! Here, where he belonged, with her, and the TARDIS, and all of time before them to go off and save the world in, just like normal.

But even as she'd started to run, she'd seen the face behind him. And she stumbled to a stop a meter or so in front of him, staring over his shoulder at the woman he'd stolen out of time and she knew life on board the TARDIS would never be the same again.

* * *

Reinette

The girl's face had said it all. Oh, she had hidden the hurt almost instantly, but Reinette had not lived in the hotbed of intrigue that was the French Royal Court for so long without learning how to read the smallest, most hidden facial expressions. The girl, the same one who had once come through on her Doctor's behalf to warn her, had been overjoyed to see the Doctor, and shocked to see her.

The Doctor didn't see it, that was obvious. Where the girl had stopped short, he strode forward and embraced her, spinning her around and speaking quickly, that joyous lightning swift banter that had so enraptured Reinette as a girl and young woman. Asking the girl, Rose she heard him call her, how long they had waited, driving straight over her answer to explain how he had asked Reinette along with them in their travels.

Watching her face, Reinette could see the pain, quickly chased away as the Doctor bent down and whispered something in her ear, before turning back to her.

"Rose'll show you on board, get you settled. I'd better go find Mickey, see that he hasn't destroyed anything important." He said, his expression slightly distracted. It was amazing how different he looked here, surrounded by these metal walls, than he did at the Palace at Versailles. His focus was no longer solely on her, and Reinette was taken aback at how surprised she was by that. It had been so many years since she had traveled through his memories, and she had forgotten, or maybe just ignored, the fact that she was just the latest in a long line of people he had saved and taken with him. Looking over at Rose, she thought that at least she wasn't alone in this feeling.

As the Doctor walked off, whistling absently, Rose turned to her with a slightly pained smile. "'M Rose," she'd said, "I met you once, when the Doctor sent me to warn you. I'll find you a room somewhere, an' we can see about getting you something a bit easier to move around in. 'S no good trying to run for your life in a corset."

So she'd decided to make peace, instead of fighting with her for the Doctor's attention. That would make things easier in the short term, although eventually they would have to reach an actual agreement rather than stalemate. Still, if she'd made friends with the Queen, she surely could with this girl. She smiled back, and fluttered her hand against her skirts, "Or in panniers, I would think."

A small smile flashed across Rose's face, before she turned and gestured ahead of herself towards a tall blue box. "This way to the TARDIS," she said, "I think you're going to enjoy it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who and all recognizable characters belong to RTD and the BBC. I am neither. I'm simply playing with the characters and ideas they've presented.

**Author's Notes: **My thanks to Commodore Norrington for the beta reading, I really appreciate it. And if you like this story, please review. You readers have no idea how much it makes my day. If you don't like the story, still go ahead and review. I'd prefer to know if I've done something wrong.

* * *

She'd done a lot with the Doctor. Faced the Nestene Consciousness, nearly been possessed by the Gelth, actually been possessed by Cassandra, had dozens of people try to kill her, and yet this was the most difficult task she'd ever been set. Making peace with Reinette.

Rose shuddered. It had been hard enough watching the Doctor go to save her in the first place, and harder still when he'd returned hand in hand with the woman. To make it worse, Rose couldn't even indulge herself by hating the woman! She was bright and curious and brave, and she took well to the TARDIS and the reality of being one of the Doctor's companions. Actually, if Rose was honest with herself, Reinette had adapted better than Rose herself had.

It had been easier in the first few days. Rose had been able to focus on getting Reinette into appropriate clothes for traveling through space and time, and teaching her the basic rules for surviving any of the Doctor's little adventures. Wear running shoes at all times, for example, and don't let the Doctor insult your captors when the dictator's goons have just arrested you.

But once the transition period was over and Reinette had regained her confidence, Rose had had to watch her start flirting with the Doctor again. And it had hurt, watching the Doctor pull his puppy-dog eyes on another woman, seeing all that energy and passion focused on someone other than herself. Reinette at least seemed to be aware of Rose's feelings and saved the majority of her flirtations for when Rose didn't have to be in the room, but the Doctor was just oblivious.

It hurt to not be the one the Doctor automatically looked for when one of their adventures inevitably turned nasty. No matter how often Rose reminded herself that it was a sign that the Doctor trusted her to be able to take care of herself, or how it made sense that Reinette would get the extra focus because she wasn't used to the dangers. Some part of her still cried out, remembering how the old Doctor had looked at her as if she was the only person in the room, or the adventures she'd had with this Doctor, and how they'd laughed and talked and she'd still felt special, the best, the one the Doctor had chosen to take with him despite everything.

She dealt with it in the only way she knew how. She dove headfirst into their adventures, sublimating her hurt and frustration into her desire to understand the new cultures they visited. The last few planets, she'd noticed it when something was wrong even before the Doctor had. And when they were back in the TARDIS, she didn't hang around in the console room as much as she used to. She wandered for hours, exploring parts of the TARDIS that she'd never seen before. Sometimes she thought that the TARDIS knew how she was feeling, and deliberately opened new passages and rooms so that she could walk herself until she was tired enough to forget her hurt pride and bruised feelings. She was not going to let herself get mopey about it. So what if the Doctor wasn't actually in love with her, the way she was with him? He loved her, she knew. And it wasn't as if she didn't like Reinette. It was just selfish and childish, to get comfortable with what used to be and whine when things changed.

So why couldn't she stop herself from wishing for something more?


	3. Chapter 3

The Greeks, her tutor had told her once, believed that the gods held two jars, one filled with joy, the other with pain, and poured an allotment of each into every person's life. From what Reinette had seen of life, the idea had some merit. On the one hand, clockwork monsters had hunted her for most of her life. On the other hand, the Doctor had always come to rescue her when the monsters threatened. On one hand, she achieved her ultimate ambition and was made the king's mistress. On the other, she had given up so many ordinary joys in her quest to the top. Even when she had looked into her Doctor's mind, oh so many years ago, she had seen the same balance. He had experienced pain unequaled by mortal reckoning, but had seen the wonders of the universe and tasted joy beyond anything humans could imagine.

But this time, all of the joy seemed to have been poured into her life's vessel, while Rose received the pain. The Doctor had risked everything to come and rescue her, and had then brought her away from the glass and gilt halls of Versailles into a world of time vortices and TARDISes with him. She'd found new joys in this experience, learned of a world beyond the insulated bubble of courtly life. But Rose had lost her place as the focus of the Doctor's attention, and Reinette could see how it was paining her.

The boy, Mickey, had seen it as well. Shortly after Reinette had arrived, he'd asked the Doctor to take him back to his time and place. Reinette had overheard Mickey begging Rose to come back with him, and he'd bluntly brought up how much the Doctor's actions had hurt her in his attempts to convince her to go with him. She'd left then, not wishing to eavesdrop, but the result of the conversation had been obvious. Mickey had left the next morning, grim faced and solemn, and there had been a tension in Rose's shoulders and a drawn look about her mouth as she hugged him and bade him goodbye.

Since then, Rose had withdrawn further into herself with each passing day. She'd smiled and bantered when the Doctor made an effort to pull her into their conversations, but it seemed that he was the only one who didn't realize how empty her laughter had become. Ironically, Reinette thought, Rose was more at ease with her than with the Doctor.

It took two weeks after Mickey left before Reinette made her decision. This situation could not continue as it was now. The tension was growing and one of them would surely shatter if any more stress was applied. And as the Doctor continued to ignore the emotional undercurrents, Reinette would have to intervene. If Reinette had been willing to lie to herself, she would probably be telling herself that helping Rose Tyler would certainly be easier than cultivating a friendship with Marie Antoinette while simultaneously remaining King Louis' mistress. Since Reinette despised that type of self-indulgence and refused to give in to it, she knew that it would be much more difficult to help Rose. Marie had simply wanted attention and respect, Rose was a deeply hurt teenager who was attempting to bury her emotions rather than force a confrontation where she didn't know how the Doctor would react.

She planned her attack carefully, waiting for a time when she knew that the Doctor had settled into a long bout of tinkering with the TARDIS controls and she and Rose would be uninterrupted. When attempts to converse with the Doctor had lapsed into his absent-minded ramblings she knew that it was safe to confront Rose without fear of interruption by the subject of their conversation.

Reinette sat down opposite Rose at the kitchen table, hands curled around a mug of hot chocolate, as Rose gazed tiredly into the steam emanating from her mug of tea. She glanced down at the scarred wood of the table, unsure now as to how to broach the subject.

Rose saved her the trouble of searching for a suitably tactful entrée into what would assuredly be a difficult conversation for the both of them by blurting out, "It's about the Doctor, isn't it? And how I've been retreating, letting him talk to you instead of being there with him myself."

Always direct, this girl. And courageous, to not turn away from a discussion that she knew was going to touch on painful subjects and raw nerves. Very well then, Reinette could do nothing less than be as direct and honest as Rose had been. "In a word, yes. You may have hid your feelings from the Doctor, but for all of his gifts he is still a man, and not as aware of what others are feeling. It has been rather obvious to me for some time now that you were deeply unhappy, and that much of your unhappiness can be traced back to when the Doctor brought me with him into the future."

Rose flushed deeply and looked away, staring off into the distance and blinking several times before she brought her gaze back to Reinette. She swallowed and took a sip of her tea before she answered, while Reinette waited patiently for her to regain her composure and continue. "You're right," she said finally, "it all started when he went back to rescue you from the clockwork robots. The Doctor thought it was gonna be a one way trip when he left, and I wasn't sure I would be able to fly the TARDIS back to my time and wait for him to find me. I hadn't been able to bring myself to even try before you two found that fireplace and came back. And then you were there, and I'd heard him when he had talked about you. You were beautiful and brilliant and you understood him, and I'm just a shop-girl from London. I thought I was past all that, all those insecurities, but then you came and he's been so happy and so excited to show you space and time, and they just came running back."

She stopped the rapid stream of words, scrubbing her hands across her face and breathing heavily. Looking up again, she continued. "And to make it worse, I even like you. I can't even sit here and complain that you're a bitch or something, like I would've if you hadn't been so nice about all of this."

To collect her thoughts, and avoid answering Rose immediately, Reinette resorted to sipping at her hot chocolate. On the one hand, it was good to know that Rose was aware of herself and her feelings, but how to draw her out of this cycle of tensions and anguish? Perhaps…"I'm reminded of our first meeting, when the Doctor sent you to warn me of what was to come. Do you remember?"

At Rose's tentative nod she continued. "You told me that history had not intended for it to be the way it was, that I shouldn't have ever had to confront the monsters. I was impatient with you at the time, in part because I was used to the Doctor coming for me. But there was one thing that we both agreed upon there, and that was that while the Doctor and the monsters seemed inseparable, knowing the Doctor was worth any of the monsters which might follow in his wake."

Rose looked up and caught Reinette's eyes, seeming to follow her train of thought. "And my jealousy's just another one of those monsters, isn't it? I want the Doctor, want the life he's given me, and I wasn't ready to share it. But if I keep dwelling on it, I'm going to lose track of what's actually important." She straightened, setting her shoulders back and lifting her chin. "And I'm not going to. I've got what I want, I've got the Doctor and the TARDIS and all of time and space to explore." And again she caught Reinette's steady gaze. "And now I've got a friend with me to help keep him from getting himself killed again."

A soft sound from the console room caught their ears, then, and Reinette knew that the Doctor would soon be up and around, looking for them. But now that the tensions brewing within Rose had been lanced like a boil, that wouldn't be so bad.


	4. Chapter 4

Rose had been very upset about something, he knew it. She was still somewhat upset, he thought. But she wasn't talking to him about it, which was very inconvenient. It meant that he was left with simple observation and deduction to find out what was wrong and how to fix it. And that was harder to do than normal because she'd started avoiding being with him all of a sudden. He couldn't just sit and wait for her to come into the console room when she got bored, like she used to do.

It wasn't Mickey leaving, he knew, because he'd noticed her looking somewhat down before that. And it wasn't that she was bored of their adventures, or tired of the dangers. For one, if she really was fed up with it, she would have left with Mickey or asked to go back on the following trip back to visit with Jackie. For another, she was actually throwing herself more into their adventures, not less. She'd even spotted the tyrannical government faster than he had the last time out.

It wasn't a problem with Reinette, either. He'd thought it might be, but three days ago he'd noticed the two of them sitting together at the kitchen table, talking away like mad, and ever since then they'd been as thick as thieves. No, whatever was upsetting Rose, it had to do specifically with him. And that bothered him. Rose was his dearest friend in this regeneration, he loved her. He shouldn't be upsetting her, and if he was, something needed to change.

Right then. He'd track her down and force her to have it out with him. Right now he was even willing to let her hit him like Jackie'd done, if it would make her feel better.


End file.
